Venom: The Last Dance Ending and Post-Credits Scenes Explained

Let's make this simple: You want to know if there are any post- or mid-credits scenes in. The answer is yes! Stick around for both the mid-credits and the final moments after the credits are done rolling.

Full spoilers follow for Venom: The Last Dance. If you haven’t seen the film yet, check out first!

The Venom trilogy has come to a close with The Last Dance, and although this movie seems to tie up the story of Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock and everyone’s favorite brain-munching symbiote, there are still some threads left to pull on in further (there’s also the fact that Hardy has ). We’ll get to those in a bit, but first, let’s talk about what actually happens in this movie.

So how does The Last Dance play out? Let’s get into it.

Knull and Void

The Last Dance opens with a scene fans will recognize from the film’s trailers: the (very brief) introduction of , who was created by Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman. Knull is played by Andy Serkis, who you might recall directed the second Venom film, Let There Be Carnage. Knull is trapped in a void on the planet Klyntar and can only get out via something called the Codex (if you’re getting Man of Steel flashbacks, so are we).

How the Codex works isn’t completely clear, but apparently Venom has one because Eddie briefly died in the past (in the first film), which means Knull is sending his hounds, the Xenophages, to find him. Or, one of them anyway, which arrives on Earth and begins hunting down Venom, with the caveat that it can only “see” the Codex when Eddie is fully transformed into Venom. If Eddie is just himself or with small bits of the symbiote coming out of his body, he’s invisible to the Xenophage.

If either Eddie or Venom is killed, then the Codex will cease to exist.

It’s established early on that the Codex can only survive if both the symbiote and its host are alive. If either Eddie or Venom is killed, then the Codex will cease to exist. So Eddie and Venom are on the run because the Xenophage is trying to get them. They’re also on the run from the government because Eddie is being blamed for some deaths in the last movie, because hey, why not have two motivations for the same action?

This is how get in on the action, with the pair working for Area 55, an extra top-secret extraterrestrial research facility built under Area 51, which is just normal top secret we guess, and is currently being dismantled. Dr. Payne has a whole bunch of symbiotes down in her lab, including , which has been bonded to Stephen Graham’s Patrick Mulligan, who survived the last film. Toxin reveals to Strickland and Payne that Knull is a threat to the entire universe, leading everyone to get on the same page about needing to prevent him from retrieving the Codex. With us so far?

Venom: The Last Dance Ending Explained

The movie culminates in everyone getting to Area 55, where the Xenophage busts in and starts wrecking the place. After Toxin and Mulligan are killed, the other symbiotes are freed and begin bonding with some of the staff to fight off the Xenophage. It’s made clear here that the symbiotes have no evil designs for humanity, and they actively try to help Strickland and his forces fight off the Xenophage. The battle spills outside, where the Xenophage receives backup from more of its kin (why that didn’t happen earlier, we don’t know).

Eddie and Venom save a family of alien enthusiasts who helped them on their journey, led by Rhys Ifans as Martin, who is from The Amazing Spider-Man. Dr. Payne also becomes bonded with a symbiote during the fighting, who going by her appearance and coloration seems to be Agony from the comics. Payne’s symbiote form also has super-speed powers because she was struck by lightning as a kid. Sure, why not?

With Venom seemingly dead, Eddie is hospitalized, where he's told that his criminal record has been expunged.

Because the Xenophages have remarkable healing factors (they can put themselves back together even after being shredded into dozens of chunks) and kill most of the other symbiotes, it seems Venom and Eddie are toast. Realizing that there’s no way to end Knull’s threat without destroying the Codex, Venom decides to sacrifice himself, separating from Eddie and wrapping himself around the Xenophages, bunching them together as if he were the stickiest bubble gum in the cosmos. He then pulls them and himself under an acid shower that Strickland was using to destroy materials from Area 51. Venom and the Xenophages are killed by the shower (and so is Strickland, because he sets off a grenade which causes the whole thing to explode), vaporizing the Codex. Knull can evidently sense this because we see a shot of him getting in an angry “No!!!!” as this happens. Payne saves her coworker Sadie thanks to her aforementioned super-speed.

With Venom seemingly dead, Eddie is hospitalized, where a random general tells him that his criminal record has been expunged, but under the condition he never tells anyone about his experiences with the symbiotes. Eddie then goes to New York City and looks at the Statue of Liberty (something he and Venom said they wanted to do together), promising to never forget his symbiote pal.

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Okay, But What About the Post-Credits Scenes? And Is Venom Really Dead?

As mentioned earlier, The Last Dance has two post-credits scenes that hint at the future of the franchise, even if this run of Venom solo movies is (apparently) over. The first is the mid-credits scene where we get one more look at Knull, who says “your champion has fallen, the King in Black is awake. Your world will burn, and you will watch!” Although his plans were foiled this time around, this tease confirms that Sony wants him to play a major role in more films down the line. Director Kelly Marcel echoed this in an interview with IGN, where she said

The second scene is at the very end of the credits, featuring the bartender played by Cristó Fernández, who first appeared in the . The bartender has a variant in the Sony universe with longer hair, and this one was kidnapped by Strickland’s forces earlier in the film. He emerges from the wreckage of Area 51 and calls out for anyone. We then see a broken vial which once contained a symbiote (seemingly Agony, because there’s some purple light in it) that is approached by a roach. That’s it.

So the big question we have now is: Is Venom really dead? Probably not, because when Strickland captures the bartender, he saves him from a small piece of the symbiote that Venom left behind. Strickland contains this piece in a vial (very similar to the one in the post-credits scene) and we never see it again. We don’t know if this loose thread will be the way Sony revives Venom down the line, but with more Knull and Sony Marvel movies said to be on the way, we’d be surprised if the most popular symbiote character doesn’t return in some form in future films.

The one other loose thread is that Strickland receives orders from a shadowy figure we never see clearly. This appears to be Doctor Dan Lewis, Anne Weying’s fiancé from the previous films, because actor Reid Scott is credited. We don’t know what he’s up to, but he obviously has an interest in the symbiotes. Perhaps we’ll learn more about his plans in Kraven the Hunter or another Sony Marvel film.

So what did you think of Venom: The Last Dance? Do you think this is a worthy ending for Eddie and Venom’s story? Let’s discuss in the comments!

Note: This story was updated with full spoilers on Oct. 25, 2024. It was originally published on Oct. 24, 2024.